But over time, I realized something frustrating:
many students weren’t actually using the charts.

The charts were technically on the wall, but students often stopped noticing them after a while. Some became overwhelmed by too many visuals, while others struggled to locate the information they needed quickly enough to use it independently during math tasks.

That realization completely changed how I approached math anchor charts in my classroom.

The Problem With Traditional Math Anchor Charts

Don’t get me wrong — I still believe anchor charts are incredibly valuable.

Visual references:

• support student independence,
• reinforce vocabulary,
• strengthen conceptual understanding,
• and help students organize their thinking.

But I also think there are a few common problems teachers run into with math anchor charts:

Too Many Charts

By the middle of the year, classroom walls can become overloaded with visuals.

Inconsistent Organization

If every chart looks different, students sometimes struggle to quickly locate and process information.

Charts Become “Wallpaper”

Students stop actively using them because they blend into the background of the classroom.

Handwritten Charts Take SO Much Time

I love a good handwritten anchor chart, but realistically, keeping up with them during a busy school year can feel impossible.

And honestly?
Some of my handwritten charts looked a little rough by the end of the week anyway.

My Math Anchor Chart Hack

Eventually, I started simplifying my system.

Instead of constantly creating brand-new anchor charts from scratch, I began using printable math anchor charts with consistent formatting and organization throughout the year.

That consistency made a huge difference.

Students knew:

• where to look,
• how the charts were organized,
• and what kind of information each chart would include.

The charts became tools students actually used instead of decorations hanging on the wall.

One of my favorite parts of this system is that students can also keep personal copies for reference during independent work, math centers, small groups, or homework. That additional accessibility helps students become more independent problem-solvers because they do not have to rely entirely on teacher assistance.

Why This Works Especially Well in Upper Elementary

As students move into upper elementary math, the content becomes significantly more complex. Having clear visual references available can reduce frustration and help students feel more confident tackling challenging tasks.

I’ve also noticed that consistent visual supports are especially helpful for:

• struggling learners,
• students with attention difficulties,
• visual learners,
• and students who need additional reinforcement of vocabulary and concepts.

Printable Math Anchor Charts

Because these charts worked so well in my own classroom, I eventually created printable versions for all upper elementary math standards.

These printable math anchor charts:

• use consistent layouts,
• support student independence,
• reinforce important vocabulary and strategies,
• and save me an incredible amount of time during the school year.

They’ve honestly become one of the most useful tools in my classroom.

✅ 1. Covers Every Standard—Without the Stress

No more wondering if you’ve covered it all. These charts are aligned to every 3rd grade and 4th grade math standard. From operations and algebraic thinking to geometry, fractions, measurement, and base ten, every major topic is clearly laid out with age-appropriate language and visuals.

✅ 2. Print-and-Go Convenience

Forget about the markers and chart paper. These charts are designed to be ready when you are.

You get two size options for every standard:

• Large Posters (18×24) – Great for whole-class lessons. Print on 6 standard pages and tape them together or send them to a low-cost poster printer.

• Small Posters (8.5×11) – Perfect for math folders, stations, or one-on-one support.

✅ 3. Supports Visual Learners & Struggling Students

Let’s face it—math can be abstract. That’s where visuals become your best friend.

These anchor charts are clean, consistent, and easy to read. Students with reading challenges, visual processing issues, or attention difficulties benefit from seeing clear text, bold headers, and structured layouts they can return to over and over again.

✅ 4. Creates a Cohesive, Polished Math Environment

There’s something powerful about a classroom that looks put together. These anchor charts give your room that unified, intentional look—which not only helps you stay organized but also signals to students that math matters.

It’s a small change that makes a big impact.

Ready to Simplify Your Math Instruction?

These math anchor charts are the kind of resource you’ll use every day. And best of all? Once you print them, you’re set for years to come.

Click on what you need to grab your set now and give your students the consistent support they need to succeed in math.

3rd Grade Math Anchor Charts

4th Grade Math Anchor Charts

I had a lot of request for other subjects, so here’s more of what you may need!

Reading Anchor Charts

Social Studies Anchor Charts

Science Anchor Charts

Let’s make math visual, accessible, and a whole lot easier—for everyone.

The post Math Anchor Chart Hack appeared first on Ashleigh's Education Journey.

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I image you only see this on days that end in Y. (My students never get that joke.)

This is a common problem in the classroom, and it appears to be getting worse. While I don’t think we can ever completely eliminate this lack of listening and following directions, there are steps we can take to help students become more independent.

I post this chart in my classroom, but I don’t stop at hanging it up. We discuss and practice each strategy. Then, I refer to it when students ask questions that indicate learned helplessness or lack of initiative. I don’t do this because I don’t want to help students or to prove a point. I do it to support students in becoming independent and confident in their ability to problem solve-not just academically but in day-to-day life.

Read the Room

Reading the room is a social skill that helps students understand the dynamics of a situation and adjust their behavior to fit in to those dynamics. It includes observing classmates body language, conversations, and the general atmosphere.

You can help students practice reading the room by creating scenarios for groups of students to act out-taking a test, playing a game, independent reading, etc. Have the audience (who doesn’t know the scenario) explain what they should do if they entered the classroom without hearing directions or knowing exactly what was going on.

You can also help students individually. For example, if you have a student who struggles with this instead of telling them what to do, quietly guide them into leading questions on reading the room.

I like to use the following for practice reading the room. In one example students are given scenarios and describe how they would read the room. In the other example, I display popular memes and have students describe what the facial expressions communicate.

You can download the practice activities here.

Look at Charts

Using charts can help with both academics and procedures. Almost everything in my classroom serves a purpose and is intentionally displayed.

Of course not all questions can be answered by these charts, but they do give students a good starting place. Many times if students see an example, their memory is activated.

A lot of times most of what is display in my classroom is based upon my students’ most frequent questions or areas of confusion. Let their needs guide you.

Look at the Screen

I like to display detailed directions on my big classroom screen. This can be something as simple as Google Slides, or you can get fancy with something like Classroom Screens.

I haven’t fully learned Classroom Screen, so I can share about it as an expert. I’m still in the learning phase!

Read the directions

It sounds simple, but it’s often skipped. The primary way I teach this is to redirect students when they ask a question with easily accessible directions. Rather than giving the answer, I direct students to where the answer to the question is located. This is typically more time consuming that giving students what they need, but we need to think big picture.

It’s important to remember that there are situations where the student may not be able to read the directions, or when students truly don’t understand the directions. That’s a different situation and will likely need modifications that will depend on the individual. Some may benefit from visual checklists, nonverbal cues, and other scaffolded resources.

Hopefully these ideas help you and your students out!

The post Solving “I Don’t Know What To Do” appeared first on Ashleigh's Education Journey.

This shares 4 procedural reading lessons you don’t want to skip. At the start of the school year, it can be challenging to find your groove.  Thankfully, it doesn’t take long to get back into the routine.

It can also be difficult to find your starting place teaching reading. Your first few lessons of the school year are building toward your “normal” reading lessons. This post focuses on how to get started with your upper elementary reading lessons.

Guidelines of Reading Workshop

My first reading lesson of the year is Guidelines of Reading Workshop. This is typically a refresher lesson for most students, but it’s always a good review. It’s also nice to have common terminology with students. Since I teach this on the first day of school, it’s a short and sweet lesson. I follow it with a class read aloud First Day Jitters.

How to Choose a Book

On the second day of school I teach students how to choose a book and eventually let students choose their own book.

Show students how your classroom library is organized and explain the procedures in selecting a book. My procedures are: 1. only four students are allowed to select a book at a time, 2. students may only select one book at a time, 3. when students return a book, they should place it in the exact same spot and in the right direction, 4. students may only select one book during reading workshop-no switching. It is essential for students to practice placing their books back correctly, because inappropriate use of the library will cause a headache later in the year.

Before students’ independent reading time, I teach students how to log-in to EPIC. I let them select any book to read online. I don’t typically use EPIC during independent reading time, but it’s a great way for me to see what type of books students gravitate toward. While students are reading on EPIC, I let one table at a time browse the classroom library and select their first book. During this time, students begin building stamina for independent reading. After summer break, it is typically difficult for many students to read silently for long periods of time, and stamina must be built.

When You Finish a Book

This is such an important lesson. However, I feel the need to throw in a disclaimer. You will need to adapt this to your own classroom and students. We’re all in different settings and situations, so make it work for YOU. I’ve shared what I do to give you a starting place and ideas that you may want to implement.

Holding students accountable for their independent reading has always been a challenge for reading workshop. Many of us love reading and would do almost anything for uninterrupted reading time, but some of our students aren’t there….yet. The goal is to get our readers to the point where they no longer avoid reading. But, the students who struggle most with reading are the ones who work diligently to avoid it.

24 Book Challenge

For a reading bulletin board, I set up a 24 book challenge. I originally wanted a 40 book challenge as mentioned in the amazing Book Whisperer. However, I found that 40 was overwhelming for students. I always avoid stress, so I stepped back a little.

I customize a “poster” for each student. As students finish a book, they add a sticker to their poster. The goals is to finish 24 books by the end of the year, with a few required genres.

Being that I like to create completely unnecessary work for myself, I print images of the covers of books on stickers for students. It would be much easier to use different colors and color code different genres. I’d love to share my already made labels with you, but I’m fairly confident that would be violating a lot of copyright rules.

You can download the poster and label here. You can use any font for your students’ names. I used APL Type A Teacher.

It’s hard to think of many reading topics more controversial than Accelerated Reader and similar reading programs. As with most things, it all depends on how it’s implemented. Below are a few things to consider.

• We don’t want our students only reading for points or extrinsic rewards and inadvertently send the message that reading isn’t fun.
• We don’t want our students to not read a book, simply because it’s not AR.
• Avoid limiting students’ level of comprehension to the type of AR questions students encounter.
• It’s important to never turn reading into a chore or punishment.
• Students will learn how to work the system.

All that being said, I can still see some benefits. With larger and larger class sizes and and less and less time, it’s hard to consistently meet with all students individually. I want to …. I really do, but it’s not always feasible. That’s where I see the value of AR or something similar such as Read N Quiz. I use this as a tool to hold students accountable during their independent reading time.

If a student fails a test, I don’t make it a big deal. I use that information to make sure I carve out time to meet the student and discuss the book. There’s a possibility that the student did comprehend the text but didn’t do well on the test. However, there is a possibility that the student needs support in choosing a just right book because the book was far too challenging. There’s also the possibility that the student was pretend reading and more or less turning pages during their reading time without actually thinking about the text. This is when we dig-in and begin to understand the student as a reader.

Whatever your routine is, make sure that you clearly communicate it with students. Otherwise, you’ll constantly hear, “I’m finished!” which is not productive.

Status of the Class

At least once a week, I check in with each student and record the book they are reading. We have a brief conversation about the book, so I can make sure the student understands what they are reading. This also allows me to see if my students are finishing books and how long it is taking them to read a book. If I have a student spend six weeks on one book, then something’s wrong, and we discuss the situation. It’s a highly effective and simple reading accountability tool. This form is also found in my first reading unit.

I keep my status of the class forms in my teacher binder. This is on the immediately behind each student’s data/reading profile sheet.

After these lessons, I’m ready to move to more academic content, which I’ll share about soon.

The post 4 Procedural Reading Lessons You Don’t Want to Skip appeared first on Ashleigh's Education Journey.

My first few years teaching I had no trouble getting excited to head back to the classroom after summer break. I would be bouncing with enthusiasm and more than ready to get to work. I still love teaching, but it (along with life) does wear you down. It can become more and more challenging to get that new teacher excitement. In this post, I’ve shared 5 of my favorite ways to motivate yourself for going back to school.

Back to School Shopping

I’m starting my 20th year, and I still LOVE back to school shopping. A new first day of school outfit or a cute pair of new (comfortable) shoes can give you something to look forward to.

If that doesn’t interest you, there’s always new school supplies. While I am not a proponent of teachers having to spend a lot of their own money, I will say that fun, non-essential school supplies do give a burst of excitement. My brightly colored gel ink pens were definitely a wise purchase! You can read more about my favorite school supplies here.

New Lessons

If you own any of my math or reading units, you’ve probably noticed that I’m constantly adding to the units. There’s a good reason for those updates. I don’t want to become stagnant or bored with my lessons and instruction. If something works, I leave it alone. But, I’m always looking for ways to improve and make my instruction better.

It’s also important to try something new. It doesn’t have to be a whole new unit or style of teaching. It just needs to be a lesson (or lessons) that you’re excited to try out. If you’re looking for ideas, I have TONS of resources available in my TPT store and throughout the website.

Professional Goals

Setting professional goals is a great way to motivate yourself. I’m not talking about meaningless goals that you’re required to have and goals where you have to go through al the right motions to prove your professional development. I’m talking about goals that are personal to you. I try to pinpoint one specific area to focus on each year and focus my growth on that goal. Some years are more successful than others, and some years have a way of completing changing your plans. Right, 2020 teachers?!

Organize

Getting organized helps me feel prepared and less stress, which in turn is a motivator. I can’t get into my classroom and won’t get my class list until right before school starts. This can be frustrating, because there’s a lot to do when setting up your classroom. Fortunately, there are things that can be done at home.

I like to create my calendar for the year on Planbook. You can organize books. I always buy a few new books over the summer, so I label those. You can prep activities that require laminating and cutting. My favorite thing to prep during the summer is our math notebook. I have them printed and bound, and they are one of my FAVORITE resources!

Positive Influences

The last item is probably the hardest, but the most important. Try to surround yourself with people who will encourage and motivate you. That is so much easier said than done! There are few things that can zap your excitement quite like negativity. We all have our moments when we need to vent, but try to avoid letting become your only source of conversation.

I’ll be sure to read and reread this post as I head back in next week!

The post 5 Ways to Motivate Yourself for Going Back To School appeared first on Ashleigh's Education Journey.

Meet the Teacher Night and/or Open House can be a stressful event. We have our Meet the Teacher Night before the first day of school. Teachers are busy setting up their classrooms, preparing lessons, sitting through meeting upon meeting, and dealing with mountains of paperwork, so it’s hard to devote extra time for open house. However, meet the teacher night and open house is when we make our first impression with our new students and their families, so it’s important to present our best face and at least appear ready to go 🙂

Open House – Meet the Teacher Night – PowerPoint

One great way to share information at a Meet the Teacher Night is through a PowerPoint presentation. Some teachers prefer to give a formal presentation during open house. However, I prefer to have the slide show looping on display for everyone to view on their own time. This works best when your open house or meet the teacher night is more of a drop-in event and arrival times are staggered.

Physical Space

First impressions of your classroom make a mark on students and parents. However, I doubt they care if you doubled or tripled your bulletin board border. It’s not important that your classroom is a designer classroom with over the top decorations. What is important is that the physical space allows students to feel relaxed and comfortable to be ready to learn. An organized classroom also goes a long way in setting a good first impression. I try to avoid clutter and overcrowding my classroom with too much stuff.

Be Prepared

Having a classroom packed with parents and students can be hectic, so I try to prepare for the chaos with an Open House Scavenger Hunt for meet the teacher night. I like the scavenger hunt because it gives students and families something to do while I have conversations with individual parents. After greeting students and families, I give them the scavenger hunt and have students complete the scavenger hunt with (or without) their parents.

Scavenger Hunt 1-Welcome Back Form

There is nothing more important that students’ health and safety, so that’s always the first thing on my list. If families skip everything else at open house, that’s okay, but I really need this form completed. We do send home formal district-wide paperwork, but I try to get this filled out prior to our first day of school.

Some questions may be specific to certain schools or areas. I was sure to include an editable form, so you can make changes as needed.

2-Student Supplies

After spending hours setting up my classroom and having it as need as possible, it’s overwhelming to have large quantities of school supplies brought in at the same time. However, I am also so thankful for those supplies, and I never want to appear not grateful, so I try to be prepared for these supplies on meet the teacher night or open house and the first day of school. To keep organized, label bins or baskets with the items students will bring to school. This gives students a clear idea on where to place each item.

Meet the Teacher Night 3-Seating

There’s nothing for students to complete or for you to print in this section, but it’s still important. Students like knowing where their desk/table is and where they will be each day. They also like to see who is sitting near them! I always remind students that the current seating arrangement is definitely temporary.

Since we switch classes, I place name tags on the side of student desks with a magnet.

4-What’s In Your Desk

I also have students look inside their desk, just to see what’s there. If you have tables or don’t store things in desks, you’ll want to change that task to make it relevant to your classroom organization. You can see that we start the year with very little.

5-Student Questions

One of the activities in the scavenger hunt is this student questionnaire. I love the insight it gives me on students. This year I will have this form placed on students’ desks, and they will turn it in as soon as they finish it.

Meet the Teacher Night 6-Classroom Library

I like to get students excited about all the reading possibilities in the classroom, so I let students browse my classroom library. At this time, it’s just a peak and they don’t select a book. I just want them to see some of their options and to get excited about reading. If you don’t have a classroom library, you could have students browse your math manipulatives, science resources, or other instructional resources in the classroom.

7-Goals & Questions

Another part of the meet the teacher night scavenger hunt is the Goals & Questions poster. Students write a goal, question, or both on a sticky note and attach the note to the chart paper. It’s a fun way to get students moving and thinking ahead for the school year.

Meet the Teacher Night 8-One Word

Have students take a copy of a One Word card. In the activity, students write ONE word that describes their mindset or focus for the year. They may have trouble coming up with a word, so it may benefit students to see completed examples. Give students time to decorate their word. If your open house time is limited, you may want to collect the words and have students decorate the card on the first day of school.

Meet the Teacher Night 9-Treat

I like to give students a pencil or bookmark when they complete the scavenger hunt. It’s a good time to follow up with any questions or concerns that they still have about the upcoming school year.

Parent Forms

You can find each of the files in my Meet the Teacher Night and Open House Activities resource in TpT here!

The post Meet the Teacher Night & Open House appeared first on Ashleigh's Education Journey.

When it comes to shopping for your classroom, never forget you do not need all the things! As a new teacher, I felt an immense amount of pressure to purchase things that I later realized I absolutely did not need. My advice is to focus on the essentials and the resources that will have a direct impact on your students. In this post I’ve shared a brief description of my top 10 favorite back to school resources. Even if you don’t use these specific resources, I hope to at least give you an idea of potentially useful tools.

Jump to a resource:

1. Focus Wall
2. Math Bulletin Board
3. Words of the Week
4. Anchor Charts
5. Desktop Helpers
6. Open House
7. Introducing Paragraphs
8. Back to School Escape
9. First Days of Math Workshop
10. Nonfiction Text Structures

1. Focus Wall

Of course, I can’t put together a list of my favorite back to school resources and not include focus walls. Focus walls are nothing new, and there isn’t a set-up of focus walls I haven’t tried! One option I’ve used for a focus wall is to keep all my standards, essential questions, and vocabulary together. I added a heading for each subject and posted an illustrated “I Can” statement underneath the heading. Below the standard I added essential questions and vocabulary for the standard.

Another option for a classroom focus wall is to keep all of your standards together. The large charts are from my math anchor charts, and there’s more on that soon!

You can find the focus walls at the following links: Third Grade, Fourth Grade, Fifth Grade

2. Math Bulletin Board

I have one bulletin board dedicated to math strategies. On the bulletin board, I included problem solving steps and accountable talk sentence starters. I also added four levels of understanding which is great for standards based grading. You can find the math bulletin board here.

3. Words of the Week

I also love my words of the week bulletin board, and consider it one of my essential back to school resources. It’s overwhelming and unrealistic for students to grasp a huge number of prefixes and suffixes in a short period of time, so I introduce one prefix or suffix a week to my students. For just a minute or two each day, we discuss the affix and practice using it in a sentence. I use those words to create a Word of the Week bulletin board. You can combine this bulletin board with my Homophone of the Week which is is the same format at the Prefix of the Week.

4. Anchor Charts

I certainly agree that anchor charts are best created together with students to give students’ ownership over their learning. However, I teach multiple groups, and there’s no way I could take the time to make an attractive set of posters for each group. It would take me hours, and that’s not the best use of my time! (P.S. If you’re one of the lucky ones who can whip one up—I envy you!)

Instead, I made an anchor chart with each group that is sort of a rough draft. After the lesson, I would hang my nice looking anchor chart. Over the course of several years, I’ve created several sets of anchor charts. The thing that I LOVE about these charts is that they are BIG! The information on the charts should be readable for all students, so I created 18″x24″ charts.

Since some teachers would rather have a regular 8.5″ x 11″ poster, so I created those as well. You can see below the difference in size of the two posters.

Here are the links to my anchor charts: third grade math, fourth grade math, reading, social studies, and science.

5. Desktop Helpers

These desktop helpers or name plates are different from typical ones, because I don’t add student names. We constantly move around the classroom, so while students do have a desk, they don’t sit in it all day. Instead, I prefer using that extra space on the desktop helper for different topics.

I find that adding a huge range of content is overwhelming to students, so I like to focus on one unit at a time. I place self-adhesive pockets on students’ desks, and can easily swap out one card for another. The vinyl pocket you can see below, I found on Amazon. The pockets lasted a year, but by the end of the year they didn’t look good.

I have a language arts version that includes a range of reading comprehension strategies, writing graphic organizers, writing checklists, and parts of speech.

The math version of desktop helpers also includes several different options for representing multiplication and division to working with fractions. The measurement conversion help is a huge help for my fourth graders when we’re in our measurement unit.

6. Open House

Open house is often when we make our first impression with our new students and their families, so it’s critical that we present our best face and at least appear ready to go. I like to place activities that are easily completed, yet purposeful for students. I also like activities that get people up and moving around the classroom. One of my favorite open house activities is an open house scavenger hunt that I have my students and parents complete on our Meet the Teacher Night. This frees me up to float around the room and introduce myself, and it answers many of their questions.

Some of the activities require students or families to fill out forms such as contact information or transportation forms. Other activities don’t require students to write anything but to observe things such as the classroom library or to find their desk. You can find the link to the open house activities here.

7. Introducing Paragraphs

I always struggle at the beginning of the year with determining how long to spend teaching rules, procedures, and various classroom management lessons. I absolutely believe that these management lessons are essential for a smooth school year. However, I also feel pressured to dive into my curriculum as quickly as possible, because extra time is luxury I don’t have. That’s why I love combining back to school resources/activities with academic content. In this resource, I use some of my favorite back to school picture books for writing mentor texts that explicitly teaches students how to write a well developed paragraph.

There is at least one printable for each lesson plan. All of the graphic organizers follow the same format, so students can become familiar with one graphic organizer. The graphic organizer starts small and gradually expands as students learn how to write different parts of a paragraph. You can check it out here if you’re interested!

8. Back to School Escape

One of my favorite back to school resources are escape lessons. I absolutely LOVE using escape lessons or breakout activities to make my instruction fun and engaging for my students. I know that my students aren’t ready for an academic breakout lesson early in the school year, so this Back to School Breakout isn’t directed toward a specific grade level or standard. Instead, this focuses on critical thinking and puzzle type activities that are suitable for multiple grade levels.

I love the challenge and fun this will provide my students during this busy time of year! You can see the activity here!

9. First Days of Math Workshop

The first few days of school are crucial for developing the procedures that will guide the class for the rest of the school year. Students respond best when procedures are taught in small chunks of time, rather than trying to teach every procedure in one lesson. I’ve found that the most efficient way to do this is to teach a brief lesson on a math workshop procedure prior to teaching my math lesson.

In my First Days of Math Workshop resource, you’ll find detailed lessons on teaching 10 essential procedural lessons that are important for face-to-face instruction and distance learning.

10. Nonfiction Text Structures

I love introducing this challenging concept at the beginning of the year. This gives students the time they need to process and and apply nonfiction structures in all content areas throughout the year. You can find these lessons here.

In the compare and contrast activity, students find similarities and the differences between their current grade level and their previous grade level. You can use cause and effect relationships to help students understand the reasoning and importance of your classroom rules and expectations. The sequential order activity allows you to review arrival and dismissal routines. One option for the descriptive writing activity is to have students describe what math workshop or what reading workshop looks like and doesn’t look like. Problem and solution text structure gives students the opportunity to practice finding solutions to common problems.

You can find all of the lessons above in my Nonfiction Text Structures With Back To School Activities resource.

Hopefully, these back to school resources and ideas will give you a little back to school inspiration!

The post Favorite Back to School Resources appeared first on Ashleigh's Education Journey.

Nonfiction text structures can be a challenging concept for students to grasp. Because of this challenge, I used to wait until later in the school year to introduce these text structures. But, I realized that was a disservice to my students. They need time to process and and apply nonfiction structures in all content areas throughout the year.

I now introduce this concept at the beginning of the year. While students will likely not immediately master nonfiction text structures, these lessons serve as a starting place. Students then have time develop a deeper understanding and the ability to apply these writing styles throughout the year.

Because time is always a factor, I combine concepts and content whenever I can. I’m thrilled that I was able to develop a way to introduce nonfiction text structures through back to school activities. You can find the lessons here.

Compare and Contrast

In the compare and contrast activity, students find similarities and the differences between their current grade level and their previous grade level. This will allow you to solidify your classroom expectations while introducing comparing and contrasting. You can have students brainstorm ways their current grade level is similar to their previous grade level and record the similarities on the Venn-Diagram. Then, have students brainstorm ways their current grade level is different from their previous grade level and record those differences on the Venn-Diagram.

After completing the Venn-Diagram, students may use the This Year and Last Year sentence starters to write their own compare and contrast paragraph(s). At this point in the year, even upper elementary students need the extra scaffolding.

Cause and Effect

You can use cause and effect relationships to help students understand the reasoning and importance of your classroom rules and expectations. Before beginning the lesson, make sure students understand the difference between a cause and an effect and give students time to share examples of both. There is one option of the graphic organizer where you fill out the causes and/or effects to make this specific to your classroom. The second option includes prefilled scenarios and examples.

In either option, you may want to allow students to work in groups and assign different rules or procedures to different groups. Then, after completing the task, students may come together and share a collection of paragraphs. Students may use the graphic organizer to write their own cause and effect paragraph.

Sequential Order

This activity allows you to review arrival and dismissal routines while introducing sequential order. Another option is to have students write a sequential order paragraph that shares students’ daily schedule. Another option is to divide students into groups and have some students write a paragraph on arrival procedures, some students write a paragraph on dismissal procedures, and another group writing a paragraph explaining the daily schedule.

Once again, students can use the graphic organizer and the scaffolded writing paper to write a sequential order paragraph.

Descriptive

Descriptive paragraphs are often reserved for fiction writing, but they also play an important role in informational writing. One option for this activity is to have students describe different parts of the classroom, school, or playground. For example, if describing the playground, students may describe a piece of equipment and the safety rules for using that equipment. Another option is have students describe what math workshop or what reading workshop looks like. You can even have students describe what a good listener looks like. I’ve found that students have to be taught how to listen with their whole body, so is often a valuable lesson.

Once again, students may use the graphic organizer and scaffolded template to write their own descriptive paragraph. They can also write the paragraph on their own without the extra support.

Problem and Solution

Problem and solution text structure is often one of the more challenging text structures for students to grasp. Fortunately, this lesson is a great introduction to this structure AND it gives students the opportunity to practice finding solutions to common problems.

Give students an example of a typical problem such as forgetting to complete or turn-in assignments or homework. Then, model how to write steps to solve the problem and what the solution to the problem might be. Rather than writing about the steps used to solve the problem, you can choose the version that indicates three options students have to solve the problem. In either version, you may want to allow students to work in groups and assign different problems to different groups. Then, after completing the task, students may come together and share a collection of problems and solutions

There is an alternative version of the graphic organizer and writing paper to provide you with multiple options. Students may use the graphic organizer to write their own problem and solution paragraph. You can find all of the lessons above in my Nonfiction Text Structures With Back To School Activities resource.

The post Nonfiction Text Structures With Back to School Activities appeared first on Ashleigh's Education Journey.

Do you ever wonder what 4th graders should know or be able to do? Changing grade levels is difficult. I still remember crying my eyes out the first time I had to change grade levels. It was devastating! It’s hard to sort through years worth of blog posts, resources, and articles to find just what you need to get started. I know how much of a challenge it can be when you’re new to teaching 4th grade, so I’ve written this post to help get you started. Even if you’ve been a fourth grade teacher for awhile, you’ll probably find something useful!

If you’re looking for a similar post for third grade teacher look here!

Classroom Set Up

If you’re a new(er) teacher, you can feel pressured to go out and create a designer classroom. That’s not necessary. At all.

The priority should be organizing, not decorating, your classroom. Of course, I’m not saying that having a cute or decorated classroom is a bad thing. I spend more awake time in my classroom than anywhere else, so I want an environment that makes me comfortable and happy.

But, you don’t need to go out and spend lots of money creating a Pinterest classroom.  Make sure your room is clean, not too busy or distracting, and organized.

You can see my classroom here! You can read more about organizing your classroom here.

What 4th Graders Should Know – Pacing Guides

It’s important to begin the year with a plan. Of course it’s necessary to keep in mind that it’s just a guide, not rules that are set in stone. Below are my reading and math pacing guides for teachers new to teaching 4th grade. You can download example fourth grade pacing guides here. If you want to map out the year on your own, you may enjoy this blog post on Planning For The Year. Either way, it’s a great format to what 4th graders should know.

COVID and distance learning has changed so many things for teachers. It’s incredibly hard to know how to get started when you don’t know what you’re planning for. It’s next to impossible to determine what 4th graders should know if their time in the younger graders was limited. To provide even more support, I’ve shared a First 30 Days for reading and math. What makes this plan special is that it can be used for in-class instruction, distance learning, or a combination of both. You can find that post here.

Fourth Grade Morning Work

A good morning work routine is one of the most important parts of the day. It’s also a great way to continuously review what 4th graders should know. It sets your pace and allows students to feel organized and prepared. This post shares some of my favorite ideas for morning work. It also mentions how to incorporate a soft start to your day. This morning work activity reviews all major content that 4th graders should know by the end of the school year.

What 4th Graders Should Know – Reading

After years of blogging, there is simply no way to narrow down all of my reading and writing blog posts to just one! However, I was able to whittle it down to just a few. Keep in mind, all of these lessons are available as a print and digital resource.

Reading Workshop-In this post you can get a good overview of what should happen during reading workshop. The post also discuss the differences between reading workshop, guided reading, and literature circles.

Integrating Science and Social Studies-This post shares several ideas on ways to integrate your science and social studies standards with reading. Time is always a problem, so this is a big help.

Making Sense of Reading Assessments-Depending on where you’re coming from, reading assessments may look different. They may also be quite overwhelming! This post breaks down the how and why of various reading assessments.

Upper Elementary Guided Reading Groups – Reading groups in the upper elementary classroom are complex to say the least. This post is a great place to start.

Introducing Reading Workshop – This post shares procedural lessons to allow your students get started on the right foot.

What 4th Graders Should Know – Writing

Introducing Paragraphs – This is one of my all time favorite ways to begin teaching writing! If you’re new to teaching 4th grade, I highly recommend starting the year by teaching students how to write paragraphs through these back to school books!

If you want ideas on how to teach writing, this Guide To Teaching Writing is just for you! Remember, even if you recognize what 4th graders should know coming to you, it doesn’t mean they will know it.

Personal Narratives-Here is a blog post that shares how to teach students to write personal narratives. I do have blog posts for other writing genres, but this seems to be teachers’ favorite genre to start the year with.

What 4th Graders Should Know – Math

When thinking about what 4th graders should know, don’t forget about math! Math Workshop/Guided Math-This post describes how math workshop can be used in a fourth grade classroom.

Upper Elementary Math Centers-You don’t have to incorporate math centers in fourth grade. If you do utilize centers, you don’t have to use them everyday. There is so much flexibility! This is a great post to show how to use math centers in an upper elementary classroom.

First Days of Math Workshop-I highly recommend this post! It’s SO important in order to have success during the year. There are step-by-step lessons to teach math workshop with routines and procedures.

Math Manipulatives-Math manipulatives aren’t just for the little ones. Big kids need them too! However, you don’t need to spend a fortune, and there are important things to remember when using manipulatives.

Multiplication Facts-There are few topics in math that cause more anxiety (for students and teachers) than math facts. This post helps take that away. There are TONS of fun ideas and freebies to make learning multiplication facts fun AND meaningful!

What 4th Graders Should Know – Social Studies & Science

Far too often social studies and science are neglected in third, fourth, and fifth grades. When you teach content heavy grade levels, it’s incredibly hard to find the time to squeeze it all into the day. This is one of the primary reasons I love integrating as often as possible. In this post I share a few ideas on how to integrate social studies and science into language arts and math.

Testing

Yes, fourth graders have to participate in state testing. I can say with 100% certainty that the best test prep is high quality instruction all year. It’s important to be extremely careful to approach testing with the right attitude with students. I don’t use it as a fear mechanism for motivation or over emphasize the importance of test scores.

While I can’t take away all of the stress relating to testing, you can make the year easier by integrating review into your instruction all year. You can see some of my favorite ideas here.

It’s definitely not possible to share all of my resources with you, but I would love to give you some ideas. The items below are my top 10 favorite resources for teachers who are new to teaching 4th Grade.

What 4th Graders Should Know

Top Ten Resources for Teachers New to Teaching 4th Grade

This Reading Workshop Bundle is probably my favorite product! It’s one of those that really does have everything! There are 180 reading comprehension lesson plans and printables to go with each lesson plan. I’ve also included fluency practice, vocabulary, and reading homework.

My Fourth Grade Math Units is a compilation of YEARS of work! This bundle includes 10 math units with hands-on lessons, skills practice, and task cards!

I honestly don’t know what I’d do without my Weekly Word Problems. I now use the updated version with the constructed response practice for my morning work. It’s one of my favorites!

Once again, I’d be lost without my Fluency Passages! I use these for weekly fluency and comprehension homework. The best part is that the entire pack is integrated with science and social studies!

My Language Arts Morning Work is an excellent spiral review. This will help keep tricky grammar and reading skills fresh all year. (I know the cover of this one says third, but I’ve linked the 4th grade version. My fourth grade cover is in the middle of being updated 🙂

Writing can certainly be tricky, which is why I love having the Writing Bundle ready to go! This contains three writing units  aligned to the Common Core Standards: informational, opinion, and narrative!

I love these Multiplication Facts Booklets! Teaching multiplication facts is a year long process, so I incorporate these booklets all year long. The are a great way to teach conceptual understanding and memorization of multiplication facts.

I use the Prefix of the Week packet along with my Homophone of the Week for weekly vocabulary and word work. This makes a cute bulletin board and comes with different booklets!

I use this Math Constructed Response packet at least once a week. This is one of those concepts that requires practice all year long, rather than taught as an isolated test prep skill.

I’m cheating a little here! I actually have a few 4th grade assessment packs, and I love them all! I especially like the language arts assessments, because it’s often difficult to find reading assessments that include the passage and assess one standard at a time.

You are going to love fourth grade! One of the best things about fourth grade is that students are young enough to still love school and have a desire to please their teacher. Yet, they are independent enough to participate in really fun activities. Plus, the older students are awesome at catching my corny jokes! Like all students, they need love, consistency, and strong procedures for optimal success. Don’t sweat the test! Your preparation starts from Day 1 and with good instruction your students will be ready!

Don’t hesitate to ask any questions! I’m always happy to help.

The post What 4th Graders Should Know appeared first on Ashleigh's Education Journey.

Do you wonder what 3rd graders should know? Are you new to teaching third grade? Or, is it your first time teaching third grade in a long time? If so, you’re in the right place! If you’re looking for the same post for fourth grade teachers look here!

It’s no secret that changing grade levels is hard! As someone who doesn’t like change, it’s definitely not something I enjoy. Although, I do think the experience helps shape us into better teachers.

I’ve spent 10+ years teaching third grade, so I’ve accumulated a lot of resources and ideas. This blog post shares some of my favorite tips, articles, and resources for understanding what 3rd graders should know AND how to get them there. It’s definitely one of my favorite grades to teach, because the kids are still sweet but they’re also independent. At this age, they still love to learn!

Classroom Set Up

If you’re a new(er) teacher, you can feel pressured to go out and create a designer classroom. That’s not necessary. At all.

The priority should be organizing, not decorating, your classroom. Of course, I’m not saying that having a cute or decorated classroom is a bad thing. I spend more awake time in my classroom than anywhere else, so I want an environment that makes me comfortable and happy.

But, you don’t need to go out and spend lots of money creating a Pinterest classroom.  Make sure your room is clean, not too busy or distracting, and organized.

You can see my classroom here! You can read more about organizing your classroom here.

What 3rd Graders Should Know – Pacing Guides

It’s important to begin the year with a plan. Of course it’s necessary to keep in mind that it’s just a guide, nothing that should be set in stone. Below are my 3rd grade reading and math pacing guides, which gives you an idea of what 3rd graders should know. You can download a copy of the pacing guides here. If you’d like to develop your own pacing guide, you may enjoy this blog post on Planning For The Year.

Morning Work

Your morning work and morning routine helps set the tone for the day. It’s also a great way to continuously review what third graders should know. Over the years my routine has changed and will continue to change. I now implement somewhat of a soft start to the day. My students arrive in my classroom from 7:30-8:00, and they eat breakfast in the classroom. If I have 30 minutes worth of assignments, my students who arrive at 8:00 will begin the day behind, and my students who arrive at 7:30 will already have a lot of work completed. I now give all students must dos and then may dos where they have options.

This doesn’t mean that I no longer utilize any spiral review morning work. That definitely still has an important place in the classroom. You can read about those math and language arts morning work assignments here.

What 3rd Graders Should Know – Reading

In third grade students transition from learning to read to reading to learn. This is a natural transition for many students, but for other students this can be a real challenge. Students will continue to need support with guided reading groups. In this post I layout my plans and format for teaching reading.

To help make your transition a little easier, I’ve developed a Reading Workshop Starter Kit. It’s packed full of content and resources to get your started. You can download it for free here!

What 3rd Graders Should Know – Writing

When thinking about what 3rd graders should know, writing varies widely. I highly recommend starting the year by teaching students how to write paragraphs through these back to school mentor texts. Don’t assume that students will already know how to write a paragraph. Plan on teaching that step-by-step. You can read more about Introducing Paragraphs here. I like to teach students how to write a paragraph at the beginning of the year, because they will apply that skill consistently in science and social studies.

Once I teach students how to write a paragraph, it’s time to dive into one of the writing genres. Most teachers like to start with personal narratives, which you can read about here.

What 3rd Graders Should Know – Math

When thinking about what 3rd graders should know, math is always a popular topic. It’s is probably my favorite subject to teach. In third grade, multiplication facts will be a HUGE part of your year. In fact, I think I’ve written more content on multiplication facts than any other math concept. While facts are important, the concept of multiplication is just as important. It’s easy to favor one over the other, but your students will need both.

You can use this post for ideas on how to teach and practice multiplication facts.

Even though third graders are independent, they still need explicit instructions in math workshop and/or guided math procedures. I love spending a few minutes each day teaching math workshop with routines and procedures. You can read more about those lessons here.

Most teachers begin the year by teaching place value. That’s a great starting place, because it helps build essential number sense, and it’s the foundation of other math concepts. You can read more about teaching place value here.

I don’t know what I’d do without my RTI binders and progress monitoring assessments! It’s shocking to see hard hard these are to find! You can read more about math progress monitoring here.

You can read more about place value intervention lessons here.

What 3rd Graders Should Know – Social Studies & Science

Far too often social studies and science are neglected in third, fourth, and fifth grades. When you teach content heavy grade levels, it’s incredibly hard to find the time to squeeze it all into the day. This is one of the primary reasons I love integrating as often as possible. In this post I share a few ideas on how to integrate social studies and science into language arts and math.

Testing

When thinking about what 3rd graders should know, we can’t eliminate testing. Yes, third graders have to participate in state testing. I can say with 100% certainty that the best test prep is high quality instruction all year. It’s important to be extremely careful to approach testing with the right attitude with students. I don’t use it as a fear mechanism for motivation or over emphasize the importance of test scores.

While I can’t take away all of the stress relating to testing, you can make the year easier by integrating review into your instruction all year. You can see some of my favorite ideas here.

It’s definitely not possible to share all of my resources with you, but I would love to give you some ideas. The items below are my top 10 favorite resources for teaching third grade.

What 3rd Graders Should Know

Top Ten Resources

This Reading Workshop Bundle is probably my favorite product! It’s one of those that really does have everything! There are 180 reading comprehension lesson plans and printables to go with each lesson plan. I’ve also included fluency practice, vocabulary, and reading homework.

My Third Grade Math Units is a compilation of YEARS of work! This bundle includes 10 math units with hands-on lessons, skills practice, and task cards!

I honestly don’t know what I’d do without my Weekly Word Problems. I now use the updated version with the constructed response practice for my morning work. It’s one of my favorites!

Once again, I’d be lost without my Fluency Passages! I use these for weekly fluency and comprehension homework. The best part is that the entire pack is integrated with science and social studies!

My Language Arts Morning Work is an excellent spiral review. This will help keep tricky grammar and reading skills fresh all year.

Writing can certainly be tricky, which is why I love having the Writing Bundle ready to go! This contains three writing units that are aligned to the Common Core Standards: informational, opinion, personal narrative, and fictional narrative!

I love these Multiplication Facts Booklets! Teaching multiplication facts is a year long process, so I incorporate these booklets all year long. The are a great way to teach conceptual understanding and memorization of multiplication facts.

I use the Prefix of the Week packet along with my Homophone of the Week for weekly vocabulary and word work. This makes a cute bulletin board and comes with different booklets!

I use this Math Constructed Response packet at least once a week. This is one of those concepts that needs to be practiced all year long, rather than taught as an isolated test prep skill.

I’m cheating a little here! I actually have several No Prep packs, and I love them all! I especially like that many of the printables are much more than a worksheet. I’ve included several interactive games in each of the packs as well as many pages that require higher order thinking skills.

You are going to love third grade! One of the best things about third grade is that students are young enough to still love school and have a desire to please their teacher. Yet, they are independent enough to participate in really fun activities. Third graders should get to have fun too! Like all students, they need love, consistency, and strong procedures for optimal success. Don’t sweat the test! Your preparation starts from Day 1 and with good instruction your students will be ready!

Don’t hesitate to ask any questions about what 3rd graders should know! I’m always happy to help.

The post What 3rd graders should know appeared first on Ashleigh's Education Journey.

The first few days of school are crucial for developing the classroom routines and procedures that will guide the class for the rest of the school year. This is especially true for your math instruction.

The very first day or two of school, I focus on general classroom routines and procedures and move into content specific procedural lessons a couple days into the year. To be perfectly honest, these procedures can be boring. I obviously don’t want my students bored, so I’ve found a few ways to make teaching procedures a little more engaging!

There are simply too many procedures to teach all at one time. Students respond better when procedures are taught in small chunks of time, rather than trying to teach every procedure in one lesson. The easiest way to do this is to teach a brief lesson on a math workshop procedure BEFORE beginning that day’s math lesson. You should be able to teach the most essential procedures in about 10 days.

The lessons below are all included in my First Days of Math Workshop resource. In each lesson, there are teacher notes and student instructions. You can absolutely modify the lessons to fit with your style of math instruction.

What is Math Workshop?

Every year it’s so tempting to skip this lesson. It seems a little too obvious. However, that’s not necessarily the case for our students, and it helps to have common terminology and expectations. Students who are learning math procedures distantly must also learn how each part of math workshop will be shared or presented.

After the lesson, have students complete a brief review. The activity can be completed in two different ways. One is to allow students to explain the three parts of math workshop in their own words with Google Slides. This version will allow students to practice accessing Google Classroom and practice opening and working with resources through Google Slides. Students will be able to resize and insert text boxes.The other format can be completed on paper.

Habits of Good Math Students

The next classroom routines and procedures lesson teaches students about behavior and academic expectations during math workshop. Have students generate a list of good habits of math students. As you add to the list, guide students into including the following:

• Show your work-We want students to get right answers, but we also want them to understand the HOW and WHY of math.
• Remain on task-Discuss what students who are on task look like and what students who are not on task look like.
• Ask productive questions-We want our students to ask questions during math. However, we need to teach students how and when to ask their questions. Students must also learn how to articulate a question. I always use this lesson to share that, ”I don’t get it” isn’t a question.
• Actively participate in class-Spend time discussing how to participate and what engagement means and looks like, as well as what it doesn’t look like.
• Take their time-Explain that hurrying through your work to be the first person finished does not equal a good math student.

As a follow-up activity to this lesson, have students complete the graphic organizer below. If you plan to incorporate a signifiant amount of technology during this time, show students HOW to click a link to watch a video and return to the original assignment.

What Happens During Work Time?

This math classroom routines and procedures lesson revisits “What is Math Workshop?” It goes more in depth on what should happen during work time. If you plan on using centers, this lesson is when you will explain your center math procedures.

During the lesson, describe your expectations for work time.

• Raise your hand if you need the teacher, or what students should do if they need help.
• Talk in a soft voice-discuss volume levels.
• Stay on task-you can never review this too much.
• Show all your work-you will need to revisit this regularly.
• When to avoid leaving the classroom-I ask my students to wait until AFTER the mini lesson (excluding emergencies).
• Never interrupt a small group-what are other options.
• Where students may and may not sit while competing their work

If you are implementing centers, share how centers will be structured.

• How many activities a day should students complete?
• How many days a week will students participate in centers?
• What do students do with completed center work?
• How do students know which task to complete?
• How will students check their work?

What Happens During Closing?

It is easy to overlook closing during math workshop when teaching classroom routines and procedures. However, it is an essential piece to the model for learning math procedures. At the beginning of the year it takes a great deal of modeling and practice to teach students how to appropriately share.

In this lesson, create an anchor chart that says, “Responsibilities During Closing”.

Presenter

• Shares work
• Explains HOW they found their answer
• Discuss the strategies they used
• Asks and answers questions
• Speaks clearly
• Looks at audience

Audience

• Actively Listens-discuss what that means
• Makes relevant and productive comments-discuss what is relevant and productive and what isn’t
• Asks questions-Discuss what types of questions are appropriate

Closings can be incredibly powerful with digital learning. Three great tools for closing are FlipGrid, Padlet, and Jamboard. It’s certainly not essential to use all three platforms. Sometimes less is more.

Have students complete the closing time expectation graphic organizer. In the assignment, students describe the behavior and procedural expectation for math closing.

Classroom Routines and Procedures – Accountable Talk

Accountable talk is when the students talk and listen to each other using the correct terminology and vocabulary, as well as explain their math thinking and engage in math discussions. This is often very difficult for students, especially at the beginning of the year.

Even though you are not always present with students during distance learning, accountable talk is still important to ensure students are getting a grasp on math procedures. Use this lesson to explain your accountable talk (and writing) for distance learning.

• Use correct vocabulary. Give examples and non examples.
• How to explain answers in math. This is the first of many lessons on this topic. Use this as a starting place but don’t expect immediate success or mastery.
• Discuss how to leave comments to others using accountable talk. Without guidance, students tend to leave comments such as: I like how you wrote neatly; You did a good job; I think that’s right, etc. While not necessarily bad, these comments do not continue the learning process. Model examples of productive comments and questions.
• Discuss what will happen in the event someone leaves an inappropriate comment.

There is a paper version of this activity where students sort what accountable talks sounds like and what active listening looks like.

What Do I Do When I Finish My Work?

This classroom routine and procedure will vary greatly from teacher to teacher. The most important thing is to make sure students know exactly what they are supposed to do when they finish their work time task. Some suggestions include:

• Learning/Performance Task-keep until we share-after we share ONE person per table will turn in all papers (this will have to be modified this year)
• Test/Quiz-turn in to tray as soon as you are finished
• Centers-clean up center area and materials but do not turn in recording sheet until ALL center activities are completed
• Booklets-do not turn in until booklet is finished

Be sure to teach students how to submit assignments through Google Classroom. During this lesson, also show students how you can unsubmit an assignment if corrections need to be made. If you use any type of rubric or grading scale, teach students how to access this information as well.

Have students practice submitting an assignment in Google Classroom. Then, have students unsubmit the assignment to ensure all students can utilize this feature.

Classroom Routines and Procedures – Math Manipulatives

It is essential to be consistent with your expectations of how manipulatives should be used. Have students generate a list of expectations for correctly using manipulatives during.

Make sure students know where the manipulatives are kept in your classroom and your policy on how and when to access manipulatives. Let students know which ones are available to them to use and which may be off limits. Be sure students also know how to put away their manipulatives.

Students can access manipulatives digitally, so they can also use this time to learn how to access digital manipulatives. Show students how to access and use the virtual manipulatives you plan to use first in your instruction. In today’s task, have students show to ways they can use virtual manipulatives. You can read more about using math manipulatives here.

The paper version of this activity is a great way to review the purpose or need of each procedure for manipulatives.

How to Work in a Group

Math instruction is highly interactive where students collaborate and work with their peers. However, working with a group isn’t always easy for some students. It’s important to set your expectations on how students should work with each other.

• Stay on topic
• Use quiet voices
• Listen to each other
• Don’t work ahead
• Help each other-letting classmates copy isn’t helping
• Ask your group members questions
• Be kind and supportive
• It’s okay to disagree-support your reasoning respectfully

What is Struggle Time

Struggle time is usually an unfamiliar concept to students that is often very frustrating. However, struggle time is a very necessary part of teaching math procedures through a workshop. Since many of the tasks are complex and require critical thinking, students should not always look at the assignment and immediately know what to do. They must stop and analyze the question and decide what they must do to solve the problem. This can be very difficult for students, especially those who are used to “getting it” quickly and easily.

Give students ideas of what to do when they get stuck:

• Understand-retell the problem in your own words
• Underline key words
• Think about what the question is really asking
• Try-just give it a try (guess and check)
• Draw a picture
• Take the numbers out
• Work backward
• Make an estimate
• Reflect-does your answer make sense
• Take it one step at a time

In the lesson show students how to access the support resources you plan to use-anchor charts, math notes, Khan Academy, etc. It’s also important to remember that this is the first lesson of many needed lessons on problem solving strategies.

Classroom Routines and Procedures – Multiple Representations

Students should be encouraged or even required to represent their mathematical thinking though multiple representations. The use of multiple representations allows students to further develop their conceptual understanding of math procedures. Of course, not all problems can, or should, be shown with each representation.

Explain to students that good math students represent their work in multiple forms:

• Pictures or other model
• Number sentences
• Written explanation
• Table
• Graph

Students need to represent their thinking through multiple representations.

Classroom Routine and Procedures Final Notes

Don’t forget you can modify, move, or even eliminate lessons to make sure the classroom routines and procedures lessons work for your students. You can click here to access all of the activities shown above in my First Days of Math Workshop.

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